A Ten-Billion-Won Skill Book

Ice Sword.

Crunch!

She drove her blade into the frozen heart of the monster. Already frozen down to every last cell, the creature shattered into pieces without so much as a scream.

"Haa."

Staring at the system text floating in midair, she finally let out the breath she had been holding.

"Ice Sword."

"Tsk."

Looking at that pathetic ranking, Ice Sword—Choi Yuna—clicked her tongue. She had prepared for this floor as thoroughly as she knew how, and the result was still a disaster.

Forty-sixth.

To anyone else it might have looked high enough. To her, it was nowhere near good enough. She still had a long way to go before she reached the place she was aiming for.

"Fine."

The rewards weren't bad. They just weren't enough to satisfy her. After roughly collecting them, Choi Yuna left the Tower at once.

"Excellent work, ma'am!"

The moment she stepped outside, a waiting staff member approached and bowed.

"Yeah. Everything quiet out here?"

She handed over her gear as if it were the most natural thing in the world and brushed the moisture from her coat and hair.

"Yes. Are you all right yourself, Awakener?"

"Yeah, more or less."

She had cleared it, so call it half a success. Her personal goal of breaking into the top thirty had failed spectacularly, but still.

"That one-hour-thirty wall really is something."

Before entering, she had rewatched the top rankers' clear videos and analyzed Floor 29's environment down to the last detail. She had run the opening action sequence through her head dozens of times, drilled the monsters' weak points on the lower floors, and trained again and again at linking magic with her sword.

Not a single part of her preparation had been half-assed.

And still, Choi Yuna had failed to break the one-hour-thirty barrier—the cursed wall that separated A-Class from S-Class.

"Still, you're only about two minutes off now. You'll punch through that wall soon enough."

"Thanks."

Even if it was a canned line of comfort, it didn't feel all that bad. If she kept farming Nightmare Floor 29 and optimized her route, she really would break one hour thirty, just like he said.

But if it isn't a first clear, it doesn't mean much.

The Tower only remembered first-clear records. Shaving time off after that was nothing but self-satisfaction.

Ugh. So annoying.

Thinking about the record again made irritation surge up her throat. Afraid she might take it out on some innocent bystander, Choi Yuna forced the boiling emotion down and shut her eyes tight.

"Haa."

After a short breath, she pulled her phone from her pocket.

If she couldn't contain the feeling, she just had to dump it somewhere. Preferably on anonymous strangers she would never have to look in the face for the rest of her life.

"Heh… heheh."

That rush. Always fresh.

Watching the comment section fill with curses made the tightness in her chest ease a little. With a much lighter expression, Choi Yuna turned her gaze toward the car window—

"Ah, Awakener. By the way, that skill you were looking for just went up on the market."

The Management Bureau staffer in the driver's seat glanced at her through the rearview mirror as he spoke.

"What?"

The skill she had been looking for.

Choi Yuna leaned forward at once.

"A healing-type skill showed up?"

Choi Yuna. Alias: Ice Sword. Trait: also Ice Sword.

A hybrid class that wielded both a blade and ice magic. Naturally, her job had manifested as Magic Swordsman.

If she had a weakness, it was healing, full stop.

A Magic Swordsman could learn both warrior and mage skills—which also meant the pool of skills obtainable from unidentified skill books ballooned exponentially. Pulling the exact healing skill you wanted out of a random gacha was like plucking stars from the sky.

Even with the Management Bureau pouring resources into her, the only healing skill she had was the most basic Heal. That said everything. And even that one ate so much mana she couldn't freely use it mid-fight.

What she desperately ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠needed was a passive healing skill with almost no mana cost.

Cell Regeneration would be perfect.

It matched every condition she wanted.

"And you're saying something like that went up on OneTop Market?"

High-end healing skill books almost never appeared on OneTop Market. Most of them slipped into the black market to dodge the fees. That was exactly why Choi Yuna, for all her money, had never managed to get one. As a heavily backed Awakener under the Management Bureau, she could hardly go shopping on the black market in broad daylight.

Eccentrics like Maestro didn't care what anyone thought—but she was still building her position. She had to watch how things looked. So even when she heard a listing had hit the black market, all she could do was sit there and suck her thumb.

"Normally it wouldn't. The seller is probably a newbie who doesn't know the black market exists."

Or an Awakener with an unusually strong respect for the law. Given the reality of South Korea these days, the odds of the latter were basically zero, so it was almost certainly the former.

Either way, for Choi Yuna it was pure luck.

"Buy it. Right now."

Strike while the iron is hot. Choi Yuna didn't hesitate. She had never hesitated at the moment of decision—that was how she had climbed this far in the first place.

"Are you sure?"

Starting bid: 100 million. Bid increments: 10 million. Even for Choi Yuna, the bleed would be significant.

"The Bureau can't provide separate support this time."

Ever since the appearance of the "Heavenly Demon," the Management Bureau's available budget had gotten extremely tight. Supporting agents dispatched to China had burned through a massive amount of funding, or so the story went. And with nothing much to show for it, the atmosphere at the Bureau these days was ugly.

"It's fine."

She had plenty saved on her own. Buying one skill wouldn't be a problem.

Choi Yuna hit the bid button without a second thought.

The second she bid, someone else raised the price.

"What the hell?"

She frowned and immediately raised it again.

Slam it this high and they wouldn't dare follow.

But the other party stuck to her like a ghost.

"Ha. So that's how you want to play?"

Trying to snatch what was hers?

In her entire life, Choi Yuna had never let anyone take something she wanted. When she wanted something, she got it—object or person, it didn't matter. The words "yield" and "give up" simply did not exist in her dictionary.

"Fine. Let's see this through to the end."

And so Choi Yuna and the unknown bidder went at each other with veins standing out on their necks, a full-blown pride war—until, at last, the Cell Regeneration skill book closed at the outrageous final price ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of one billion won.

"Damn it! Damn it!"

Bang!

Blood Demon Cao Feilong slammed the table with everything he had. The solid wood couldn't take his monstrous strength; it split clean in two and collapsed.

"Fucking Bangzi app."

The item he had been hunting for so long had finally gone up for sale, and he had done everything he could to get his hands on it—only for an identity verification window to pop up at the critical moment and make him miss the bid timing. By the time he scrambled through the workaround, the auction was already over.

"This dogshit…"

Cell Regeneration was the skill Blood Demon had been desperately searching for. Given how he fought—using his own blood and flesh for all kinds of tactics—Cell Regeneration had such overwhelming synergy it might as well have been a dedicated skill for him.

For some reason, though, he and Cell Regeneration had the worst luck imaginable. Whenever a listing hit the market, someone else had already snatched it by the time he got there. When he paid a fortune, it turned out to be a clever fake more often than not. Once, a subordinate had even proudly presented a skill book he had "worked so hard to obtain"—and it was something completely wrong like Cell Explosion.

For years after awakening he had scoured every corner of the world, and as if the universe itself were laughing at him, a Cell Regeneration skill book never once landed in Blood Demon's hands. Designated skill books that guaranteed a specific skill weren't exactly common on the market to begin with.

And then today.

Intel came in that a listing had appeared on Korea's Awakener-only app, OneTop Market. So he had rushed in with a VPN and a throwaway account—only to end up competing with some lunatic, and then, of all times, get hit with identity verification at the last second.

Once again, Cell Regeneration had slipped through his fingers right in front of him.

"These Bangzi bastards deserve to die!"

Blood Demon vented his fury at empty air.

"Give me the seller's information!"

At this point, the only option was to find the seller himself. Threaten them, persuade them—whatever it took, he would tear that skill book out of their hands.

But then—

"AAAAARGH!"

Blood Demon's rage-filled scream reached no one at all.

The second the notification popped up on my phone screen, my brain stopped working.

Is this real?

Was I still half-asleep? I pinched my cheek. It hurt.

Since waking up in this body, I had never taken a hit this hard.

"One billion?"

One billion? Even so, that was a completely insane amount of money. I knew it was a healing-type skill book, but I never imagined it would sell this high. I had figured three hundred million would already be a jackpot.

And three hundred million was already a fortune most people would never touch in their entire lives.

"Holy shit."

No wonder everyone kept singing about ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Awakeners, Awakeners. The floor might be similar to other jobs, but the ceiling was just ridiculous.

"If I made money like this every day, I wouldn't even need to climb the Tower."

Not that that would ever happen. This was pure, absurd luck—winning the lottery wouldn't be an exaggeration.

"Damn, though, the fees…"

Almost a hundred million? OneTop Market, you absolute maniacs.

State-certified. Safely connecting sellers and buyers and handling consignment sales—those were real advantages. But seeing those deranged fees with my own eyes, I couldn't help the stream of curses that came out.

Still, I should be happy I sold it at all.

"The biggest problem is still that my info goes to the buyer, though."

Honestly, even if it got out that the seller of the skill book was Awakener Lee Jihan, it wouldn't be a huge issue. Anyone who managed to connect the current "Heavenly Demon" Lee Jihan with the old "genius mage" Lee Jihan wouldn't be a brilliant detective—they'd need their brain structure checked immediately.

"But just in case. Better to prepare for everything."

I opened the Awakener Management Bureau app and set every one of my information disclosure settings to Restricted.

By default, South Korea required every Awakener to register all information with the government upon awakening, except for the detailed contents of their Trait. From A-Class upward, though, you could set your disclosure range however you liked. At that rank, every scrap of information could be a weapon—or a fatal weakness—so it was a kind of privilege.

Once Restricted was on, even the director of the Awakener Management Bureau couldn't look. It was treated as strict military-grade secrecy. As far as I knew, only the absolute top—president, prime minister, defense minister—could access it.

Conveniently, my past self had been exactly A-Class, sitting right on the privilege cutoff line.

And even if I lock my info down now, it's not like anyone's going to care.

I had left it public before because I was going around to job interviews. I didn't need to do that anymore—and more importantly, I now had dozens of reasons to bury my information as deep as it would go.

Changing the settings took less than a minute. Being able to finish even this kind of annoying process with a single app—what a convenient world. In truth, if the government made Awakeners run around for paperwork, half of them would just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠flee overseas, so from the state's perspective it was more like holding their nose and making things easy.

"Prep's basically done."

Time to go submit the goods to the Management Bureau.